Dear Men, Apathy Is Your Sexy Friend

We asked two writers — one male, one female — a simple question: What is sexy? We didn't tell them how to answer this question or who to talk to. We just asked that they answer it, however they saw fit. PLUS: THE SAME QUESTION FROM A MALE PERSPECTIVE >>

A cell phone, an SUV, some reindeer in an Orangina ad, a windbreaker, the robotic voice on my Bluetooth speakers, iOS7. This is a list of things that have all been described to me as "sexy" by individuals market researchers would consider to be my peers.

I don't think there's anything sexy about inanimate objects, and I wouldn't have sex with anybody who thought there was. And while there may be a few people out there physically attracted to their stereos, there are certainly not enough of them to comprise a target demographic for advertisers.

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The inanimate objects that people call sexy share traits we normally consider feminine: the curves of a Ferrari, the elegance of an operating system. I can't think of any objects that are sexy in a masculine way: inadvertently confrontational, charmingly negligent, a little gross. But men, now more than ever before, are stylistically self-aware in a way that makes them susceptible to advertisers trying to convince them that sexiness is an acquired virtue, literally — that one must acquire things to be sexy.

Sexiness, in men anyways, used to be about not caring. You just wore whatever, ate some meat, and were tall. But now everybody cares! I am actively unattracted to men who Care, which is a conservative stance, I know, but I can't help having it.

I just assume every man I see is gay. It's been this way for a few years. That men can and do care about fashion now is a fact alternately celebrated and lamented. Celebrated because it means the end of cargo shorts and K-Swiss sneakers, lamented because it's become impossible to know whether or not you're looking at someone who might want to have sex with you.

It is a seriously under-argued point that among the chief advantages afforded to men is that women don't really care what they look like. A man can be physically repugnant by all standard metrics but so long as he is funny and/or smart and/or powerful, women will find him sexy.

As a woman who considers herself to be funny and smart if not particularly powerful, I still know that I would be virtually worthless on the sexual marketplace if I didn't do everything in my capabilities to also look beautiful, well-groomed, and stylishly dressed. "Genius," wrote Edith Wharton, "is of small use to a woman who does not know how to do her hair." This bleak adage is as true today as it was one hundred years ago.

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So it seems maddeningly petty — to say nothing of mortifying — that men should be comparing denim rinses in department stores, let alone taking note of the contours of their facial hair. I feel proprietary feelings towards fashion and beauty rituals: they're socially-acceptable compensations for cultural handicaps, and when men seize them, all I am able to see is willful ignorance of their innumerable advantages — stealing from the poor to give to the rich.

Not having to think about sexiness is a luxury, if only because it saves time. Even a neutral-level of attractiveness in a woman (a litany of negatives: not fat, not hairy, not wearing ill-fitting polyester blouses…) is in fact the result of a great deal of effort and time, effort and time that any woman in her right mind would prefer to devote to other things (not starving, not tweezing, not hand-washing silk…). So really what I see when a man in a studied ensemble of slim-fitting business-casualwear sits next to me on the subway is an idiot. Here is a person, I think to myself, who — by choice, for zero reason at all — has chosen to direct mental and financial funds towards something that neither he, nor the women he aims to attract, care about. It's foolish asset management, and the unwise allocation of resources is never sexy.

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